I Feel Fine
by PolyesterRage
Summary: Zombies, a homicidal maniac, and the end of the world...what's an un-undead guy gotta do to rest in peace?


**I Feel Fine**

**Chapter One: The Worst Night Ever**

**Author's Note:** A big huge thanks to my beta (and the one who actually got me to write this), the lovely LadyYateXel. I hope this is an enjoyable escapade for everyone.  
**Disclaimer:** Yeah, you know the drill.

* * *

The 24-7 was garishly lit, and Edgar was getting a headache from the constant flashing of the back light. It was also freezing inside and smelled pungently of cigarette smoke and "Dee-licious coffee." He wondered, with all this unpleasantness, if they actually wanted anyone in the store. Edgar glanced at the cashier's bored face as he rang up a customer's items and decided that they probably didn't.

It was late enough so that the store was the only place around open, but apparently not so late that the store would be empty. Edgar was one of only three customers in the store, and one, who Edgar thought was intoxicated, loitered around in the back. Unfortunately the other customer, a woman, was in front of Edgar in line and had decided that she needed several 2-Litres of Poop Cola, a carton of cigarettes, and five bags of Crazy Sal's Discount Low-Fat Synthetic Aspirin-Flavored Jerky Chews. Edgar looked down at the single chocolate bar in his hand and sighed. He considered just walking out of the store with it, but then decided that he didn't have anything better to do than to just wait in line.

There was a sudden clatter in the back of the store, as the other customer knocked over a display of Count Cocofang boxes. The cashier didn't even look up from his transaction as he said, "Hey man, watch it," and received a strangled moan in response. The woman was too caught up in whether her cigarettes would ring up to even notice the clamor.

Finally, after paying for her purchases with a check, the woman left the store and it was Edgar's turn. He set the chocolate bar down on the counter, and with the same hand reached into his pocket for his money. He had just pulled it out, when he saw the cashier, who he read was named "Lionel," go pale and open his eyes wide.

"What?" Edgar asked, wondering if he was having a particularly bad hair day. That was when he felt a hand land heavily on his shoulder.

"Uuuuunngggh," the thing, that Edgar now knew was not a customer, groaned.

"Oh perfect," he grumbled to himself, and shoved the money back into his pocket. He easily escaped from the zombie's grasp and stepped away from it. Lionel quickly ducked behind the counter, which pointless as the zombie's attention was clearly fixated on Edgar. The zombie moaned again and he stumbled after him. Edgar just walked out of his reach, now very annoyed. All he had wanted was a simple chocolate bar. That's it. He hadn't expected having to deal with the walking dead. Luckily, he thought as he lifted the baseball bat he'd brought, he'd been taught to be ready for anything.

The impact of the bat made a sickeningly wet "crunch" sound as it collided with the zombie's skull. It took one more hit before it was completely dead. Edgar poked it once with the bat just to make sure, before he was satisfied and walked back over to the counter.

"...Hello?" he asked, peering over the counter's edge into the small back space. Lionel was huddled in the corner. Edgar sighed again. Tonight was not going well at all.

"Is...Is..." Lionel stuttered, shaking. His eyes kept flicking to Edgar's brain-spattered bat, which Edgar noticed and quickly put out of sight. No use in rubbing it in the poor guy's face, he obviously hadn't encountered any walking dead before. Or at least any walking dead that were actually...dead.

"Yes," Edgar said, guessing at what he was attempting to say. "It's dead. Really. So...don't be afraid, and whatnot. Now, how much was that again?"

Lionel slowly stood up (with much assistance from the counter), and was able to choke out "a dollar, five." Edgar paid him the money, and quickly walked out of the store, although not quickly enough to miss Lionel collapse onto the ground again. He stood outside of the store for a moment, so he could rest the baseball bat against the wall and open up his candy bar. Once it was unwrapped, he began to walk home.

He thought about the zombie attack as he was eating. That was the fifth attack on him in that week alone, and the second that day. He wondered what exactly was going on. Things in the city had never been entirely normal; he was proof enough of that. But zombies bent on eating human flesh were a bit out of the ordinary. And attacks were becoming more and more frequent. This, Edgar decided, was probably not a good omen.

His mind preoccupied with thoughts of the walking dead, he didn't notice that the car on the road was headed straight for him. And he didn't notice just how close the car was until it was almost too late. Still, his attention was drawn to sound of tires, and he had enough time to frantically wave his arms to catch the driver's attention.

Unfortunately this proved ineffective and the car slammed right into Edgar Vargas, who died immediately on impact.

* * *

It seemed to take years, but eventually the car reached its destination and ground to a halt.

Edgar was not at all pleased. In fact, he was seething with rage. He was still attached to the bottom of the car, although he was at least not the pulpy mass that he'd been only moments before. He most certainly didn't have his chocolate bar, which he was pretty sure he'd lost when the car first ran him over, along with his baseball bat. If not then, it certainly had been lost when they went over that huge pothole. Or maybe it was the speed-bump. At any rate, the chocolate bar was gone, Edgar was still attached to the car by his arm, and he was left wondering just what sort of person ran someone over without even slowing down. Or at least stopping to scrape them off the bumper.

He was still trying to dislodge himself when he heard the front door of the car squeak open. He heard a noise that he found oddly familiar as the driver stepped out of the car and began to walk away. That was when Edgar finally freed his arm, only to further injure himself by hitting his head on the ground with a sharp "crack."

"Fuck!" he said, rubbing the back of his head. That one word pretty much summed up his feelings about this escapade. It has started so optimistically, with the urge for candy. And it had ended with getting run over and then dragged under a car for several miles.

Edgar shuffled out from under the car and slowly stood up. He was intending on giving the person who'd just run him over a piece of his mind. Until Edgar spun around, and discovered who, precisely, it was who had turned him into a bloody mass of splattered tissue just minutes ago.

"Why were you under my car?"

He was tall, almost as tall as Edgar, and bone-thin, with dark circles under his eyes. All in all he looked nearly identical to when he'd introduced himself as "Johnny C.," and subsequently had Edgar torn to shreds. Edgar trusted his memory. It was a hard thing to forget. He tried to find his voice, while Johnny just stared at him inquisitively.

"You," Edgar started. "...You hit me with your car."

"Oh," Johnny answered. He turned away from Edgar and began to walk across the dirt that Edgar guessed passed as a lawn to the door of the shanty-like house. Edgar was indignant.

"And," Edgar continued. "We've met before, actually. You killed me then too."

At that Johnny turned around and walked back to the car. He stopped in front of Edgar and peered at him, which made Edgar quickly go from feeling indignant to distinctly uncomfortable. Then he felt annoyed at the fact that he felt uncomfortable and not angry, or murderous or even filled with a vengeful desire to key the man's car. He wondered if perhaps he should have just rolled out from under the car, took a good look at who had run him over, and then walked away, but then realized it didn't particularly matter either way. So he stayed.

"Hm," Johnny said, finally breaking the silence. "This is awkward. I can't say that I've ever met someone after I killed them. What's your-"

"Edgar. Edgar Vargas."

"Edgar Vargas?" Johnny squinted at him for a moment, as though trying to decide what he thought of the name. Then, and Edgar was so surprised by this he involuntarily flinched, Johnny broke out into a huge grin and said, "I'm Johnny C., Edgar!"

"...Yes," Edgar replied, slowly overcoming his adrenaline rush. This change in demeanor was...unexpected. He wasn't sure how he should react. "I remember."

"This is interesting!" Johnny said, the manic smile still on his face. "Do you happen to remember why I killed you? I apologize for my rudeness, but you have to understand that after the first fifty or so dismemberings, it becomes rather hard to remember them all. Plus I so often find myself wishing to forget about the miserable excuses for human interaction that precede their demises that I generally put them out of my mind soon after, to focus on more pleasant things...like rice krispy treats. Hmmm," and at that Johnny put his hand on his chin and looked closely at Edgar's face. Edgar, for his part, was still trying to deal with how effervescent Johnny had become over the period of a few minutes.

"I know!" Johnny said, snapping his fingers and looking satisfied. "You were the fellow that tried to keep me out of the elevator at the mall! Yes? He definitely had glasses."

"Um, no, actually. I-"

"Shhh! Don't tell me!" Johnny yelled sharply, and Edgar recognized the tone of the man who had once strapped him to a death-machine. "I'll remember it! You...chewed with your mouth open? Mispronounced 'emphatically?' Oh! I know! You called me a 'skinny faggot,' and then I sawed open your head! That wasn't you? Hm."

Edgar was at a loss as how to respond. So finally, when Johnny was in the middle of a guess, he just blurted out, "I didn't do anything!"

There was a long pause, and Johnny was silent. Then he began to cackle.

"Edgar," he said, in between breaths. "There hasn't been one person that I've mutilated who hasn't maintained throughout the whole ordeal that they, essentially, hadn't done anything. That doesn't help me at all!"

"No, it's true," Edgar said. "Even you said I did nothing. I asked before you had me ripped to shreds. Strips, actually. Ripped to strips."

"I said that?"

"Yes," Edgar confirmed. This seemed to puzzle Johnny, and Edgar tried to elaborate as much as he could. "Apparently you needed blood to paint a wall, and were too lazy to find someone who was actually horrible. So you chose me."

Edgar watched as a light seemed to switch on in Johnny's mind. A dark look had passed over his face at the mention of the wall, but then it had flicked back to the manic expressed that he'd worn before. Even so, Edgar noticed that the insane smile was slowly fading away, and he began to resemble the man that Edgar had seen after rolling out from under the car.

"Yes," Johnny said. "I do remember now. Edgar Vargas."

Johnny turned back to his house, and began to walk over to it.

"Well, Edgar, it would be a pleasure to get reacquainted with you, as you did seem like a fine fellow and our past circumstances did not award us an opportunity to get to know each other properly. Would you like to come in? I have no treats, or cookies. I may have some processed ham, though."

He looked back at Edgar expectantly, while Edgar merely stared at him, at a loss as to how to react. The strangeness of his current situation had finally hit him. He was being invited into the house of a madman who had ran him over with his car, and then some time before that had caused Edgar to be torn apart by some machine in order to paint a wall with blood. And he was being offered processed ham. Edgar finally just sighed.

"Okay, Johnny," Edgar answered, and walked over to the front door. Johnny merely smiled in response, and opened the door. This revealed the fact that the interior of the house was swarming with zombies, and they all now had their mindless appetites set on Edgar and Johnny.


End file.
